The Hanging Tree
by randolhllee
Summary: At the end, Shaw calls Root.


"Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where I told you to run,

So we'd both be free.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met at midnight

In the hanging tree. 

Are you, are you

Coming to the tree?

Wear a necklace of rope,

Side by side with me.

Strange things have happened here,

No stranger would it be,

If we met at midnight

In the hanging tree."

"Little busy, Shaw," Root snapped. Shaw could hear the gunfire that popped in the background of the call, whining dully through the cell phone's overwrought wiring. The light from the cracked screen cast jagged light over the broken concrete surrounding her as she lost her grip on the phone and it clattered to the ground.

"Shaw?" She heard the worry in Root's buzzing electronic voice, followed by heavy breathing and a grunt. Her good hand fell onto the errant phone and she pulled it up to her bloodied head. Shaw shook her head with half-closed eyes, calmly trying to focus on the small device through the desire to sleep.

"Root," she breathed through painfully gritted teeth. From the subway car some distance away, she heard the shots begin again and knew that John was cutting a path through hell to get to her. That could only mean that Harold no longer needed protecting, and the realization hit Shaw with a dull thump on the stout wooden chest where she kept her emotions. On the phone, a barrage of new pops heralded more gunfire near Root.

"Shaw, what's happening? She can't see you," Root's voice was carefully controlled chaos, and Shaw focused on this beloved aspect while she struggled to stay conscious.

She could taste thick salt in her mouth when she moved her tongue. "Subway… Three teams… Ten each…"

There was a loud boom on Root's end that caused the fragile phone speakers to screech with alarm. "Sameen, are you hurt?" Root's voice was higher than she had ever heard it before, like a tossed grenade flying up and out of sight.

"Little," Shaw replied with a coughing chuckle. "Resting." She attempted a gesture with her right hand before she recalled that Root was miles away with no way to see her, and that her right arm was twisted uselessly underneath her. She tried to roll off of it, thinking vaguely that maybe she was cutting off blood flow, but her left leg was proving unresponsive as well. "Weird," she sighed.

"Keep talking to me, Sameen." Root's voice crackled, whether from the bad connection or from emotion Shaw could not tell. "What's weird?" The background noises of the call from Root's end had diminished, but the crunching indicated running.

Shaw processed this along with the screams coming from her right. It sounded as though a pack of Rottweilers were having lunch. The thought brought Bear to mind.

"Bear?" she called, but it barely exceeded a whisper. "They just… tried for John," she forced out. Her breath was coming faster now, driving bubbles of blood from her lips and onto the dusty cement next to her face. "Fuckers," she added forcefully. "Bear?"

She heard a whimper from her left and finally succeeded in rolling in that direction, twisting her arm even further beneath her. She could no longer feel that limb, so it did not seem to matter, but she hissed as her left leg hit the ground. Her gun dug into her back where she had dropped it, and her midsection felt as though something metallic and sharp had clawed its way out of her torso.

"Bear?"

"Shaw, keep talking." Root's tinny voice reached Shaw's ear as a thin thread of sound extending from her searching left hand. In the dark, her fingertips found wet fur and she rubbed reflexively.

"Bear…" Her hand spread more fully across the German Shepard's side, and she felt the funhouse mirror version of what had once been smooth fur and firm muscle. "Good boy…" Shaw was not quite sure if the dog was breathing strangely or if her hand was trembling, but that question was resolved as the chest under her hand shuddered and stopped.

"Good boy…" She thought that she murmured this for hours, but she could not be sure that the sound made it into the cold air.

"Shaw, I found a car, I'm on my way." Only the last fragment made it through the iron helmet crushing in Shaw's head, but she dragged the hand holding her phone back near her head and mustered her voice.

"No," she managed weakly. The subway seemed even darker, but it might have been her vision going. She could no longer hear John, and the soldier that held court in the furthest recesses of her mind declaimed that both he and her five senses were dying on her.

"I'll be there in ten minutes, tell that big idiot to keep you and Harold safe for that long!" Root sounded desperate, like she had when she spoke to Harold all those times. She always joked with Shaw, but Shaw heard what Root said to Harold through her bugs. Root knew the stakes of this war.

"Run," Shaw said as clearly as she could. Though she could hear the blood rushing through her head and veins and dripping onto the floor more clearly than she could hear her own voice, she felt a dizzy and muffled sense of pride that she had gotten the word out. Root would live and fight again.

"Shaw, just—" She tried again, stubborn to prove she could.

"Run." Root could win, Shaw thought unsteadily. That woman was an unnatural force of destruction. Shaw liked that.

"Sameen!"

"_Run_—" The phone fell from her grasp when her fingers became too thick to hold it, but she kept whispering until her lips would not move any longer. She was vaguely aware that breathing was becoming too difficult. When the next inhale did not follow exhale, she was strangely light for a hushed moment. Then she left.

* * *

Hi, sorry, this is what happens when I listen to sad orchestral folk hymn-style songs ad infinitum late at night. I own neither the lyrics to "The Hanging Tree" (Mockingjay Pt. 1 soundtrack) nor anything from POI. Thanks for reading, please review!


End file.
